


Fruits Of His Labor

by Starryoak



Category: Adventure Time
Genre: Canon Typical Slang, Cross-Posted on Tumblr, Episode: s09e13 Come Along With Me, Finn (Adventure Time) has PTSD, Fix-It, Fluffy Ending, Gen, Headcanon, It Makes Sense in Context, It is now, Major Character Undeath, Post Episode: s09e13 Come Along With Me, Post-Canon Fix-It, but I'm not going to judge you if you ship it and if you squinted it could go that way, is that a thing?, it's not important but it's there, major use of slang, not Finnfern, the words 'womb juice' are used and i swear that it's not as weird as it sounds
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-12
Updated: 2019-07-12
Packaged: 2020-06-26 17:14:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19772794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starryoak/pseuds/Starryoak
Summary: Finn is doing his best to deal with what happened during the Gum War with regards to lost friends and family, but finds a pleasant surprise awaits him.





	Fruits Of His Labor

**Author's Note:**

> I'm gonna be honest, this was shat out in a few minutes back in September of 2018 because I just refused to accept that Fern died at all, and HE'S ALIVE IN MY HEART. Originally titled 'Fern Fruit AU' but I decided that wasn't a good enough name for a fic on AO3, because we have STANDARDS here. Very low standards, granted, but standards.

It was fairly safe to say that Finn wasn’t coping too well with Fern’s death; he hadn’t managed the first time, and now that it seemed like there wasn’t any hope of someone resurrecting him once more, he was doing even worse.

No one really had time to grieve, or even process the events of the Great Gum War and GOLBs return, it had all happened within a short twenty-four hours, a single day that changed everything. And while most of Ooo went back to normal, at the ruins of the treehouse, things were far from ok.

At first, Finn seemed to be handling it pretty ok, all things considered, but then, he started obsessing over the tree that Fern had become; he bought fertilizer, he rented Turtle Princess’s botany books, watered the tree and even made a feeble, confused attempt at checking the soil acidity. All in all, he was absolutely transfixed with the tree. It all came to a head, however, when they started to rebuild the treehouse, and Jake brought out the nails.

“Finn, dude, you gotta let me nail in the new floorboards, or we’ll just be living under a tree, not a treehouse!” Jake protested as Finn blocked every attempt Jake made at hammering a nail into the tree to connect the first floor. Jake would extend his arm as far as was reasonable, but Finn would scramble to intercept the hand.

“No, dude, don’t you know that stuff hurts trees, bro?” Finn said, mildly frantic, stopping the nail once again. “Like, the hole can grow fungus and kill the tree!” He waved his arm around as if attempting to emphasize his point, but it came across more as a panicked flail.

“Marcy built this last treehouse, didn’t she?” Jake frowned, trying to reason with Finn. “The tree was still all good like, a couple hundred years after she made it; I’m sure it’ll be fine.” He began to lift his hammer shaped hand, but Finn let out a scream as the nail simply contacted the bark. “Dude!” Jake gaped at Finn, confused.

“Look, let’s maybe, uh, maybe…” Finn began to scramble for another solution. “Maybe we can ask Marcy to help build it?” He squeaked out, tilting his head and grinning awkwardly. “Or, uh, maybe we build around the tree first?” He added, nodding and giving a thumbs up to his own idea.

“Finn…” Jake sighed, frowning and stretching over to his side. “If you’re still janked up about the whole Fern thing, it’s ok, you know?” He wrapped his arm around Finn. “That was some pretty janky stuff that happened, and it’s ok that you ain’t got it through your think-melon.” Jake emphasized, poking Finn in the head, but his little brother shook it off.

“Ok, maybe I’m janked up a little…” Finn admitted, sitting down, Jake doing so as well, so they were both on the floor with their legs crossed. “I mean, he finally gets free of that dang grass demon and that was all that was keeping him alive?!” He snapped, pounding the ground with his arm. “It’s just not fair, dude!” Finn looked to be on the brink of another crying fit about Fern, and Jake sighed, hugging his little brother.

“It’s not fair, dude.” Jake repeated what Finn said, but in a more reassuring tone. “Life can be pretty dumb that way. Look at Simon; finally gets rid of the crown, and he loses his lady in the process!” Jake said, doing a small shadow puppet show of Simon’s face, frowning. “Sometime life just janks you up real bad and you just gotta pick up the pieces.”

“I know…” Finn frowned. “I just, y'know, wish it coulda gone down some different way.” He sighed, resting his head on his arm. “Plus, I can’t just ask Peebs for another new arm until she’s done with all the junk she’s gotta do cause of all the war stuff.” He waved his stump around as well for emphasis.

“Yeah, that sucks.” Jake agreed, humming for a second. “I could be your arm, you know.” He offered, but Finn shook his head. “Just offering.” He shrugged. “I just know we gotta build something soon, or we’re gonna be caught in the spring rain.”

“I know…” Finn sighed, head still on his arm. “I just wish there was some way we could do this without, like, hurting Fern.” He admitted.

“I think we could make a shack around the tree, if you really want.” Jake ignored the fact that Finn was still referring to the tree as Fern; it was part of his coping mechanism, or at least that’s what Princess Bubblegum said when he asked her, worried about his brother. “It’ll take a little more work, but we can do it!” Jake nodded, affirming himself. It wasn’t like the tree had to be incorporated yet; it kept growing, and they didn’t know when it was going to stop.

They worked on the treehouse around the tree for a solid week before the shack was done, enclosing the bottom half of the tree in a small room; NEPTR and B-MO already settled in nicely, and Finn, well… Finn was still grieving. He would water the tree every day, and spread fertilizer around the roots of the treehouse without even having the decency to joke with Jake about fertilizer just being fancy poo they bought for extra money, and he had his bed set up closest to the trunk out of all of them. It was clear Finn was missing Fern.

It was a rainy day in May when they first saw it, two months after they started building around the treehouse, a small flower began to bloom on the tree, right above where Finn slept. He insisted on staying near the flower, to make sure it didn’t wilt, and slowly, it began to bloom, then…

“Jake, the flower!” Finn shouted, calling his brother over to his bed one night. “Jaaake!” Finn screamed for emphasis when he didn’t come fast enough.

“I’m coming, I’m coming, Finn!” Jake said, stretching over to the boy’s bed. “What’s got you in all this excitement?” He asked, cocking his head to one side. He looked at the flower, and saw, to his sadness, the flower was beginning to wilt. “Oh, man, I’m sorry, buddy…” He patted Finn on the back, but Finn shook his head.

“No, no, this is good!” Finn grinned, and Jake looked confused.

“What part of the tree’s flower all dying is good?” Jake asked, and Finn laughed.

“It’s not dying, bro, it’s turning into a fruit!” Finn pointed at the tiniest bump on where the tree’s flower was falling off; a small lump of fruit was beginning to grow. “Fern’s a fruit plant!” Finn clapped his hands in excitement.

Despite all the encouragement, Finn began to worry over time as the fruit began to grow; it was the size of a watermelon by two days time, and no one was sure what would happen, or when it would be done growing. It eventually reached the point where the fruit was the size of Finn himself before it stopped growing, and the day after it stopped, something wonderful happened.

“Finn, dude, we gotta cut this fruit off the tree, it’s like, bonkers huge.” Jake said, beginning to turn his hand into scissors. “We’ve waited long enough; any bigger and this thing’s gonna bust through the floor!” He added, waving for emphasis.

“Sure, sure…” Finn said, sullen. Truthfully, he wasn’t sure how to feel about the fruit having finished growing; did he like it? Was it some kind of present from Fern, or would eating it be like, eating Fern? Was it even edible?

“Come on, I’ll let you do the first snip.” Jake said, handing his own hand over to Finn, who smiled slightly, and nodded. “Attaboy, Finn!” Jake grinned, glad to see his brother happy.

“Ok, cutting the Fern fruit in three… two… one!” Finn dramatically counted down, before snipping with Jake’s help, setting the fruit loose from the branches, and onto the ground.

“Let’s open this puppy up and see if it’s edible!” Jake grinned, drooling slightly. “And don’t give me that look, Finn, fruits are meant to be eaten!” He added, pouting at Finn.

“Yeah…” Finn said, before psyching himself up. “Yeah! Let’s see what it’s like inside!” He grinned, hyping himself up for the big surprise.

“It sounds kinda hollow, but there’s a huge seed inside.” Jake said, tapping the fruit, before pointing to the darkened center which took up most of the fruit. “This thing’s like an avocado!” He complained. “Man, avocados are only good for guac!” He frowned.

“Yeah, but dude, that’s like, a lot of guac, right?” Finn smiled, cheering Jake up, who grinned mischievously.

“That’s like, a whole month’s worth of guac from one avocado!” Jake grinned, forming a spoon out of his hand. “Let’s open it up!” He said, Finn nodding. But the second that Jake touched it with his hands, something they could never forget happened.

The fruit split open at the top, ignoring the place Jake had tapped it, and unfurled suddenly, letting out a gush of juice that washed over Finn and Jake like a wave of water, revealing all of the insides of the fruit to be liquid besides the seed. They both shook themselves off, eyes closed shut from the tidal wave of fruit juice, and opened their eyes to a sight they never could believe.

The seed was no seed, or rather, not a conventional seed at all, but a wet, compact ball of grass. A ball of grass in a very familiar shape.

“Dude, are you seeing what I’m seeing?” Jake asked, nervous, afraid to guess at what it was for fear that he’d be wrong.

“Yeah, I am!” Finn said, gaping and beginning to grin with all of his heart. “Dude, that’s-”

“ ... Woah... I don’t feel so great…” The ‘seed’ said, uncurling from the fetal position and rubbing his head. “That nap was gnarly…” He added, before looking up and spotting Finn, his ears perking up with joy. “Finn?” He gasped out.

“Fern!?” Finn repeated back, picking up his clone in a big hug, ignoring all the wet grass that was clinging to his shirt. “Fern, dude, you’re alive!”

“I never died, bro.” Fern said, coughing, despite not needing to breathe. “Ease up on the squoze, Finn!” He grinned, Finn doing no such thing. “I’ve been sleeping for like, forever in there.”

“Welcome back, dude!” Finn said, wiping the tears away from his face.

“Now come on and help us clean up your fruit womb juice.” Jake interrupted, grabbing both of his Finns in a hug, and pointed to the sticky floor.

“… Aww, snap.” Fern sighed. “I knew there’d be a catch.” He looked dejected, before he and Finn both broke into a laugh

It was good to be alive.


End file.
